Originally Posted by
Rumpled
So, in TX the property tax rate is 5+%? (CA base rate is 1% + others)
Is that what you would advocate here?
That would make my taxes on my lowly condo well over 20 grand a year. That's why we had Prop 13.
I think the base rate where my Dad lived was something like 3% and then there were a bunch of 0.25% and 0.5% local add-ons.
I'm not advocating for a 5% tax rate, BTW. But it
does seem like the tax burden should be a bit more equitable. Look what Prop 13 does: say you buy a condo today that's worth $1M and your neighbor also has the same condo and it's also worth $1M. You'll pay 1% of $1M in property taxes, or $10,000/year. But your neighbor bought his place 20 years ago for $200K. He'll only pay 1% of $200K or $2,000/year in taxes. Same condo, same building, same fair market value
but you'll be paying 5X more in taxes!
Granted, Prop 13 allows for minimal adjustments to the neighbors tax rate each year so he'll actually pay a bit more than $2K/year, but still
way less than what you pay. Doesn't that seem a bit crazy? The fact that it cheats the local school district out of a serious chunk of change, is also an obvious problem. And one of the reasons that $40B of the state's $95B budget goes toward education...